


Happily Ever After (the anywhere, everywhere remix)

by romeinruins



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Established relationship(ish), Growing Up is Hard, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, Stealth background poly!frerard, being a grownup is hard, don’t worry they don’t know what they’re doing either, lots of terrible terrible choices when it comes to alcohol and drugs, sad boys being sad, stay tuned for bby!panic, the rest of their bands show up, this cast got bigger than i thought it would
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-07-12 16:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15998909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romeinruins/pseuds/romeinruins
Summary: It’s not that Mikey Way could see himself falling in love with Pete Wentz, given time and dates and all the things normal people do to fall in love. It’s that Mikey Way can’t ever imagine himself not being in awe-admiration-fascination-something with Pete Wentz in the future and it’s the most amazing, terrifying thing Mikey has ever felt.Mikey, Pete, and the inevitable end of Warped ‘05. A story about navigating life as a not-okay adult and not letting go of the things you want.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay folks. I stumbled into this fandom in November somehow and I’ve been whining over this fic for literal months. There’s 25k of it somewhere on a google doc, which already makes this the longest thing I’ve ever written. It needs a lot of edits and a lot more work, but I need to post this at some point. It kinda feels too important to me not to share it.
> 
> Originally, this started because Lexi, who really is to blame for all of it, wanted Mikey taking up knitting. There has been no knitting so far, but I promise if I finish it, there will be. This universe’s Mikey Way will take up knitting as a hobby and supply Pete with accessories until they’re both old and grey. This will also have a happy ending, the title doesn’t lie.
> 
> Title is, of course, a reference to Bang the Doldrums. Also this is not an accurate representation of anything, not even how texting worked in 2005.

Pete smiles into their last kiss for today, smiles wider when they separate and doesn’t let go of Mikey.  
Instead, he just stares at him, dopey weirdass smile on his face, and Mikey isn’t quite sure who slipped Pete what drugs to get him into this state but he doesn’t mind. Pete looks good, happy, comfortable, at ease. He’ll take the chance to memorise his face, it’s a very handsome face and Mikey won’t get to see it every day for all that much longer.

“I’ll miss you, Mikeyway,” Pete say, soft and almost not understandable, and then breaks the spell over them with a kiss to the tip of his nose before he unwinds his arms from around Mikey’s neck.

There’s a lump in Mikey’s throat he barely manages to swallow in time for a reply. “You’ll see me tomorrow,” is what he only just manages, too soft and too understanding for the sheer degree of ‘what the fuck?’ that is currently running through his brain. Because. Seriously. No. What?

He watches, dumbfounded, as Pete skips off to where Andy and Patrick are waiting for him.

Pete leaves to spend time with his band, summer evening air sweltering and the sound of starting tour busses around them, with a smile that Mikey’s never seen him give anyone else and a wave and he takes the thoughtless happiness of the last few days with him.

Mikey hadn’t assumed he’d be spending nearly every waking minute of Warped with Pete Wentz of all people. He’d assumed he’d be spending evenings keeping Gee company and very consciously not getting wasted and telling his brother it was exactly what he wanted to be doing. He assumed he’d be spending nights crashing parties with Frank the way they’ve always been, long established routine of showing up somewhere, acting like they’re supposed to be there and leaving with some pretty person a few hours later or in the next morning when consciousness reclaims him. 

Instead, he’s spending his days holding Pete’s hand as they look for anything about this tour they don’t know yet, finding more or less private spots to exchange kisses and secrets, spending his evenings with their bands, an island of two in a sea of people and their nights together, pressed into bunks barely really made for one adult, finding ways to fit together. 

Everything about this tour is a surprise and everything about it is Pete. Pete, who apparently is going to miss him when he’s spending the night with his band, where he’s supposed to be, for once.

The thing is, it feels weird to be separated from him again, apart once more. It’s a travelling night and the whole band’s present and accounted for. It’s not like he’s alone, but the world feels strangely large and lonely again now that Pete’s gone. He kinda gets where he was coming from, with the missing thing. 

He tries very hard not to think about what the things he’s feeling are implying for the end of tour. 

“Penny for your thoughts, Mikes?” Frank asks and flops down next to him.  
There’s only so long any member of this band can mope undisturbed in the lounge of the bus. He’s pretty sure the non-Way members made a rule about it at some point. It’s really no surprise that Frank is breaking the silence.  
He almost wishes it was just Bob and him in the lounge. Bob is currently retrieving a controller and a memory card and seems to be in the process of starting up a game of something Mikey has no idea about. Bob is happy to let him sit in silence as he drives a virtual car into virtual gangsters. Bob doesn’t ask. Bob is happy to be silent company.  
Frank is too much his friend not to worry. The nagging bastard. 

Mikey leans into him, hides from the world in Frank Iero’s dubiously-clean shirt. 

“I’m doomed,” he whispers, more than half-serious. 

Frank snorts, it sounds less disdainful than it could. It’s pretty obvious that he has some idea what Mikey’s having trouble with. There are no secrets on tour. 

“You’re alive,” he replies and puts an arm around Mikey. “We’ll make a real boy out of you yet.”

Bob’s game starts up, Frank goes back to his book, Mikey doesn’t absorb anything of the comic he finds on the floor next to him. He’s not even sure what it’s about.

—

Mikey Way is not a brave person.

It’s been hours since Frank asked him what’s wrong with him. He’s still on the sofa in the lounge, everyone else has disappeared by now. He’s left on his own and his brain is running his problems and mistakes in circles through his mind, a best-of of all the ways in which Mikey Way isn’t worthy of the admiration that makes kids scream at him every day. 

He‘s sure some people would disagree, that there‘s thousands of teenagers out there who‘d tell him that touring the world in a bus with a band and playing an instrument he‘d barely even known when they started out takes guts. He‘s sure his parents, Gerard, his band, all of them, would rush to reassure him that he’s not a coward if they had a reason to assume he’s in need of it, but the fact remains.

Mikey Way is a coward.

He joined his band because he was terrified of a dead-end life in fucking Jersey without Gerard, because Gerard, when he’s high and manic on his own ideas, on creation, art flowing through him like sparks of electricity, is a blindingly bright all-consuming force of nature and people like him don’t stay in Jersey with their little brothers, they go out to conquer the world or burn themselves to dust in the process. Joining My Chemical Romance wasn’t even a question because the first thing Mikey was ever addicted to was Gerard’s creation-brightness, because the world he’d have to live in without his brother is too scary to even contemplate, because Mikey has always been a coward and sometimes flight means running full speed towards the least-scary thing.

These last few months, this year, ever since Elena died really, have hurled him at so many things he’s always been too scared of to even contemplate even when the fact that they were bound to happen had been written on the wall in large, neon-rainbow letters. Elena, Gerard’s subsequent breakdown and the downward spiral that ended in Japan, Otter and Bob and the whirlwind that has been happening ever since, it’s a miracle he’s still going at this point.

Usually, the brothers Way have a delicate balance. Mikey holds on when Gerard can’t anymore. Gerard finds his feet and keeps them afloat when Mikey can’t anymore, following in his older brother’s footsteps even when it comes to mental breakdowns. This time, he’s overdue for his part of the deal.

They both know. It’s obvious in the way his brother, sober mind and razor-sharp awareness, has been watching him, checking if he’d been drinking more, popping more pills, smoking more, sleeping around, if he’d been more withdrawn, the sort of frail that he can hide from anyone but Gerard, about to implode like the black hole his head feels like sometimes.

Mikey wonders if Gerard, watching him the way he has been, has noticed that the reason he has, if anything, been fewer of all the deliciously self-destructive things Gerard has cut out of his life, isn’t solidarity, but Pete.

This summer, this tour, these impossible weeks he’d been sure he wouldn’t make it through when they began, the edges of the world, the edges of Mikey’s own mind, have seemed less sharp. He feels less like something precarious and and crystalline about to fall and shatter at the slightest gust of wind. He feels more like an actual, human person and he’s not sure how blatantly obvious it is that the reason for that has the warmest eyes on the planet, the softest smiles, the most amazing laugh. He wonders if anyone sees his edges smooth when Pete hugs him, wonders if even Pete knows the full extent of it.

Mostly, he’s scared. So very, very scared.

He’s scared shitless of the end of tour and the next album. Of what writing it will do to them all, terrified of the rest of tour, the part without Warped around to distract them all from everything they are and everything that happened and everything that didn’t and everything that almost did. He’s petrified of the look on Pete’s face, gentle and soft and so very sorry when he realises just how much their summer something, their friendship with benefits, their mutual fascination, truly means to Mikey, who knows he’s not an easy person to be entangled with, who is smothering and absent, caring and selfish and obsessed and callous and always putting his band, his brother, first. But here he is, nevertheless. A coward who’s given his rabbit-heart away to a man – because he just can’t do things the easy way and find a nice girl – known for fucking around and fucking up, a fellow rockstar of all things. Someone with so many better options than a summer fling who doesn’t know how to read a use-by date.

He’s scared, incredibly, shaky-hands, rapid-heartbeat, fast-breathing scared of life without Pete, after Pete, of them leaving each other and him having to pick up the pieces.  
He’s terrified of admitting out loud what any of this truly means.

 

It’s not that Mikey Way could see himself falling in love with Pete Wentz, given time and dates and all the things normal people do to fall in love. It’s that Mikey Way can’t ever imagine himself not being in awe-admiration-fascination-something with Pete Wentz in the future and it’s the most amazing, wonderful, exhilarating, terrifying thing Mikey has ever felt.

He’s scared of so many things he doesn’t know where to run. Of trusting Pete with all he’s got, of losing Pete, of the future, of all the things he doesn’t even know yet and the paths he’s headed down.

—

Mikey and Gerard, when they were kids, had been left alone with each other way too much. This is a universally known truth in their circles. Because of this, and because deep down, Mikey still hasn’t outgrown the kid who thought his older brother hung the sun and stars, his first step in dealing with scary, overwhelming things still is climbing into Gerard’s bed.

It’s the middle of the night, dark, small hours of the morning nearing their end of Warped, Pete having skipped off babbling about mandatory band bonding activities after this evening’s lengthy and slightly frustrating makeout session, his arm around Patrick and his mouth already moving a mile a minute, leaving Mikey staring after him like a puppy left behind at the supermarket doors.

With none of them having anything resembling reasonable sleeping patterns, whether or not Gerard is asleep is anyone’s guess but he’d disappeared into his bunk a while ago and as Mikey enters the sleeping area of the bus, he hears the sound of a pencil being dragged across paper. Normally, interrupting bunk time or art time is a breach of carefully established rules of touring and brotherhood, but there’s a longstanding exception to that rule for nightmares, first times, bad trips, really great trips, life changing ideas, or extraordinary existential crisises. Mikey thinks this might be the last sort of event but no matter what it is, this is definitely important enough to count.  
The knock on the side of Gerard’s bunk is perfunctory at best, Mikey doesn’t even pause to pull the curtain aside.

“Gee?” he asks and makes to climb in with his brother, pushing aside two sketchbooks and making sure at least three really fancy pens are lost forever to the monster that sleeps under the bunks and lives on socks and art supplies.

Gerard takes one look at him and makes room as Mikey settles in, pressed close in the small space, and pulls the curtain close again.

“I might be falling in love,” he says. It’s the exact same tone and every bit as much of a shamed confession as it had been when he was five and scared of the shadows the tree in front of their house threw in on the new window screens on bright, moonlit nights.

Just like back then and every time since, Gerard hugs him tight and Mikey sinks into the familiarity of his touch, his scent, the rhythm of his breath.  
It’s a confession, something that the both of them should be happy about, something scary in the good way. It feels like he just signed his own death sentence.

They lie awake until the sun comes up and Mikey talks about how the world becomes softer around Pete, how his smiles light up the day and his frowns make Mikey want to change everything that’s ever offended him. They lie awake, close and hugging, as the sun rises and the bus rolls along, their words stopping and their brains calming and Mikey certain that, no matter what happens, he’s understood, he’s loved, he won’t face it alone.

Gerard worries. Mikey can tell. He sees the same things Mikey sees even if they don’t dare name the metaphorical wolves howling at their equally metaphorical doors. Two men whose lives have no room for each other, two messes who can’t even fix themselves. He worries as the sun rises, as Pete’s first texts of the day arrive, stupid little messages wishing a good morning and sharing details of breakfast and coffee and how everyone else is still asleep.  
Mikey knows he looks like an idiot as he texts back about having spent a sleepless night in another rockstar’s bunk, explains about brotherly bonding but doesn’t elaborate what it was that they actually bonded about.

Gerard’s right to worry. Mikey texts Pete as the busses get closer to today’s location, and realises yet again how much the end of this will fuck him up. Gerard’s usually right about Mikey. Mikey just knows that there’s no way he can do anything but take whatever Pete will give him and offer up everything he’s got in return.

He is so very doomed.

When they stop, Pete rushes over from his bus to Mikey’s side. There hadn’t been a difference in Mikey’s texting but Pete’s way of dealing with their separation drawing closer clearly is wrapping himself around Mikey the second he’s within reach, continuing right where their last texts had left off even as Mikey’s hit with the intensity of Pete and last night’s realization and his conversation with Gerard, who is watching them carefully.  
The change must show in him because Pete, in spite of all the times he’s rightfully been accused of being flighty and self-centered, is remarkably good at reading him and trails off as he gives him some space and looks as Mikey quizzically. The fact that Pete, even overflowing with things he wants to share and wanting to be as close as possible, can be that caring, can read him that effortlessly, is one of the things that gives Mikey some form of hope for them and warmth rushes through him as Pete’s stream of consciousness about some random band he found online trails off and he looks him up and down, trying to figure out what might possibly be wrong with him.  
And before Pete, perfect, caring, impossible, beautiful man that he is, can even ask, it’s Mikey who’s closing the gap between them, clinging tight and breathing him in, this lovely, amazing, incredible man who somehow cares for him, this shining, brave beacon of a person who’s clinging back just as hard, whose fingers are digging into Mikey’s shoulderblades and and whose very presence shuts out the rest of the world, mutes the bustle around them.

They haven’t kissed since last night, it really hasn’t been long since they last saw each other, but unloading all the chaos in his head onto Gerard has flipped a switch in the way Mikey’s thinking about this and this hug in the middle of a random, crowded parking lot feels more intimate than anything else they’ve ever done, more like he’s admitting to something than the first time they kissed and touched and had sex.  
It feels, somehow, like the sort of reunion Frank and Jamia have after weeks and months apart, like resurfacing, like the universe’s colours bleeding in at the edges of a black and white photo. Mikey never, ever wants to let go.

His voice sounds more hoarse than it has any right to be when he finally half-whispers, close enough to Pete’s ear for the lack of volume not to matter.  
“Can we get back on the bus, please? Somewhere quiet?” he finally brings himself to ask, not in the shape to deal with the amount of people and movement around him relatively sober and emotional as he is.

He’s never trusted Pete, never trusted anyone outside of his band and family, with this version of himself. He plays bass, he doesn’t go out and shout his vulnerabilities and flaws at people night after night, doesn’t turn them into poetry and pictures and something other people find fascinating. He’s never had the stomach for that. He keeps them hidden, quiet in the dark where even he can’t find them and makes them disappear, drowns them out with thousands of distractions if he has to. Pete knows, technically, that Mikey isn’t always fine, the same way everyone knows the earth is a ball of dirt floating around in space. Mikey knows that Pete is aware of the concept but Pete has no idea what Mikey being vulnerable looks like.

They don’t let go of each other’s hands as they walk back to the bus, like a pair of preschoolers afraid of losing each other in a crowd. Everyone’s left to spend at least whatever time they have before they need to set up breathing actual air and relaxing and not being squeezed into a rolling sardine can, so they’re alone as they get into the bus and sit down, close still on the sofa Mikey was playing video games with Bob on last night, before he was left alone and his brain started doing the thing where it tries to force him to interact with his emotions.

By now, the whole thing, the way Mikey’s behaving, must’ve gotten to Pete, too. He’s looking at him with worry written onto the lines of his face. Mikey’s not sure what his change of behaviour looks like for someone like Pete who, all things considered, hasn’t known him that long and is always desperate to find the flaw in his own actions that caused what will no doubt be the worst possible outcome, but he’s certain whatever Pete’s thinking right now can’t be positive.

They’re sitting close, leaning into and looking at each other. Pete’s face has become familiar over the last weeks, just like the texture of his hair and the taste of his skin, but there’s still something new to discover and even like this, in the murky atmosphere of a bus with its window curtains mostly drawn shut from when they’d been watching a movie, Mikey can’t look away as he moves his hands up to stroke Pete’s hair. This man. He doesn’t know what to say, has always been better at communicating in gestures and touch, but he needs to put all of this into words. This man, in this moment, means everything.

“You-” he whispers, cuts himself off, doesn’t say anything as he moves in for a kiss instead.

Over the last few weeks, this tiny timeless eternity they’ve been whatever they are for, he’s kissed Pete too many times to count, drunk and high and desperate and thoughtless, but whatever spell lies over today lies over this kiss, soft and gentle and close in a way Mikey can’t describe. The two of them and everything they get up to are this tour’s worst-kept secret but what they’re doing here actually feels like something Mikey wants to keep close to his chest, like they’re whispering all the things the other doesn’t know into it, like they’re exchanging knowledge with every breath.  
For them, it’s almost chaste and innocent, far from earth-shattering passion but still it shatters something in Mikey, brings down barriers he didn’t even know he still had and makes him ache for Pete in a way he didn’t know he was capable of.

“I-” Mikey starts when they finally break apart. ‘never want to let you go.’ ‘need you.’ ‘adore you.’ ‘want to stay with you forever.’ he almost says but doesn’t.

“You-” he starts instead, again. ‘Are so perfect I can’t believe you exist.’ ‘are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’ ‘Are so amazing you blind me.’

“We?” Pete asks, slightly bemused, and an answering smile flutters across Mikey’s face. Nobody makes him smile quite like Pete does.

Last night, just hours ago really, Mikey was terrified of this, but now it’s Pete. Pete, who’s magical, Pete, who makes the world better, Pete, who makes him smile, who softens him, who makes him want to conquer his fears.  
Pete, whose worry still shines in his eyes.

“We,” Mikey starts and has no intention of stopping this time until he realises just how good that word sounds and needs to take a breath.

“We’re good, right?” he finally asks.

“We’re good? Of course we’re good.” Pete starts, confused. “Did something happen? Did I do anything? I know I should probably have stayed with you last night but the guys-”

Oh no, this is the thing Mikey was going for.  
“No, that’s not- Fuck. You’re perfect, last night was completely fine, nothing happened.” One day, one day he might even be able to speak in coherent sentences. Fuck.

“It’s just. This. Us. We are. This,” he elaborates, proving that coherent sentences are still a far-off goal, gesturing between the two of them. “This is good, right?”

Pete still looks confused, but at least he doesn’t seem terrified anymore as he nods.

“I just...” Mikey still doesn’t even know what he’s doing here, what he wants to say, what he wants, in general. All he wants is Pete and he doesn’t know how to voice that because this, them, together, forever, is too far removed from the reality of them separating in just a few days, leaving behind the tour and the idea of them and the most amazing summer of Mikey’s life.

“This is really good,” he says instead of any of the things he’s thinking of.  
Normally, this is the point where Pete would start teasing him about what he’s saying. Would say something lewd and innuendo-laden about good things and naked good things and how he could make things so much better for the two of them, but the mood must be affecting Pete, because he doesn’t even smirk and certainly doesn’t say any of the things he could.

“This is perfect,” he says instead and it’s exactly the sort of reassurance, the sort of tiny step forward Mikey needed to get his racing thoughts to calm down a bit.

“I’m scared,” he finally admits.  
Pete smiles at him, soft and sad and encouraging and like he understands exactly what Mikey means.

“It’s. This. Us. We’re so good and I’m so scared,” he says and it feels like as much of a confession as any of the things he’d told Gerard last night as he moves to hide his face in Pete’s shoulder.

“Me, too,” Pete whispers, voice small as his hands move to stroke Mikey’s hair.

“I don’t want this to end,” Mikey continues and wonders if Pete can even understand a word he’s murmuring into the fabric of his shirt. He can’t say this any louder, he’s surprised he can even say this at all.

Pete must’ve understood something from the way the hand in his hair tightens.

“This summer, everything, you. It’s been so good and it’s over so soon,” Mikey whispers into Pete’s shirt and doesn’t say the three words he feels infusing his every action, every breath. They must be audible in the tone of his voice and the way everything feels frail, close to tears. He could burst with what he feels for Pete but he doesn’t dare name it outside the secret parallel universe that is Gerard’s bunk.  
He thinks he might be shaking but be can’t move his face from the relative safety of where his classes are digging into Pete’s shoulder to check.

“What if it isn’t over?” Pete asks, his voice just as quiet, as small, as Mikey’s, terrified of the thing he’s suggesting.

Something comes crashing down in Mikey’s head. Something comes loose and it’s like the floor’s been pulled out from under him. This is what he wanted. This is what he’s been trying to find the courage to suggest knowing it’s a terrible idea. This is what part of him’s been shouting for since the very first time they kissed. Something comes crashing down and the floor is being pulled out from under him and something unlocks. What Pete’s asking is what this whole conversation has been heading for since the very beginning, what he’d been too scared to put into words, and it strikes him speechless, loosens the knot in his throat and leaves him without breath, tears stinging in his eyes.

The silence at Pete’s words, Mikey still leaning into him, is almost deafening.  
“Mikey?”

“I wish,” Mikey finally admits, choked, weak, frail, and feels himself too close to crying like a teenager over a breakup that isn’t even a breakup, overwhelmed by what could be happening.

“Me, too,” Pete says, sounding like there’s something stuck in his throat.  
This is a moment of truth, the outcome of this conversation, Mikey suddenly understands with blazing clarity, will decide what happens now.

He moves to sit upright again and his head feels like it weighs a ton. He can only just bear that and the way the light stabs his eyes, tears he couldn’t explain running down his cheeks.

Mikey’s never felt this conflicted about a choice in his life. He didn’t feel like this about the band, about anything he’s ever done, but he feels it now, about Pete, who is amazing, and about their future, which he wants, and about the fall he’d be setting himself up for, which he wouldn’t be coming back from. He thinks about a future measured in tours and albums and someone who’s at least as ambitious as him and he can’t take it, can’t take looking at Pete, can’t take the idea of not having him to look forward to through all of this.

“I want you so much,” he admits. He has a vague memory of having said these exact words in this exact spot before, in a completely different context, miles and what feels like ages ago. Hope is a fragile, loud, roaring thing coming awake in him even when all he can hear is the rapid thundering of his heartbeat and his own choked breath.

“You have your band and I have mine and we’re both wrecks and this is a terrible idea and I don’t know what to do with how much I want you,” it feels like the run-on sentence is the longest thing Mikey’s said in years, every word coming out like it cost him more than anything that immaterial ever should.

Pete makes an undecipherable noise and Mikey finally dares to look back up at him. Something relentless and reckless has settled on his face, hope and wild abandon and fear, like Pete’s about to jump off a cliff and enjoy every second of the fall.  
“We should keep being a thing, that’s what we should do.”

“We’re both on tour. We’re going in different directions,” Mikey’s talked this whole thing through with himself during sleepless nights, when he first started to notice that this maybe, possibly, potentially, could be something other than a few good-natured hookups between friends. He’s thought it all through and every possible future ended in tears and suffering. Friends with benefits would end in jealousy and never-ending pining for the thing he almost has, an actual relationship will end with them losing track of each other, Pete losing his fascination with him, the two of them too far apart to make it, heartbreak just a few months after he allows himself to believe in them. He even doubts they could really be friends, not when looking at Pete won’t fail to make his heart stop just because they can’t have each other. 

In the end, they’re doomed. They’re fucked and bound to fuck each other up but god, god Mikey wants. He craves and needs and wants more viscerally than he ever wanted anything else.

“No. I know that, but,” Pete’s got something to go for now, his enthusiasm is making a comeback. “You should. This should be a thing. We should be a thing. The two of us.”

“But-”

“I know.” The reasons this is a terrible idea are the only things they don’t need to talk about. “But you’re awesome.” Mikey bites back a snort. “And I’m awesome and clearly we should be awesome together as much as possible.”

“Pete. This. Pete I’m really, really serious here. I.” If what Pete wants here is them going on with their lives and being a thing whenever they happen to be in the same place, Mikey’s gonna. Mikey’s gonna say yes because it’s literally the only way he could reply to any suggestion of Pete and them and something almost like a future. He’s gonna say yes and then he’s gonna down a pile of pills so he doesn’t do something really painful and embarrassing.

In the end, none of the ways he can already see himself crashing and burning change anything.  
He wants. 

“What are you suggesting?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Whatever, really?”

“Whatever. Really.”

“And if I want us to get matching costumes and a lair and become evil overlords, you’d say yes?” Mikey can’t help it, he really can’t, not when Pete’s offering up so much of what cannot be real. 

“We might have to rebrand. Sweet Little Dudes isn’t exactly a menacing gang name.”

“We can totally make it work.”

There’s a hesitant, small smile on Pete’s face when Mikey dares to look at him. It looks precious and about as sturdy as spun sugar. Silence settles between them, hesitant and expectant.

“And,” Mikey starts. This is it, moment of truth. “What about boyfriends?”

“What about them, Mikey?”

Why. Why can’t Pete just say yes, why can’t he just answer the question without Mikey having to ask it the proper way? Why is this so hard?

“What if that’s what I wanted us to be? If what I wanted was for you to be my boyfriend?”

“Is that what you want? Not supervillains, not just friends, not just… this?”

“It,” It’s obvious that that’s what he’s saying but saying it is still hard. “You really need me to say this, don’t you?”

The smile’s nothing but a memory and something vulnerable flashes across Pete’s face. He bites his lip and couldn’t have said ‘yes’ more clearly if he’d found a microphone and screamed it from the stage.  
Mikey suddenly understands.

“Hey,” he starts. “Pete. Look at me.” Just like talking about things that bother him, Mikey reserves eye contact for dire emergencies, but he’ll make an exception for Pete. He does that a lot, usually it’s worth it.

“Why do you think I’m such a mess about this?”

There are a lot of things Pete could answer this questions with. Between kisses this summer, they’ve shared secrets, the sort of things nobody but Gerard knows about Mikey, sometimes the sort of things not even Gerard knows. Mikey is always a carefully contained mess, they both know that. They also technically both know that he’s rarely a mess about people he’s slept with, even those that might’ve counted as relationships.

Pete, who’s never wasted a chance for a smartass comeback in the entire time Mikey’s known him, stays silent.

“I. I like you so much. I want you so much, I want to be around you so much,” Mikey says. “I don’t like new people and I don’t like people getting close and letting anyone get to know me. I’ve told you that. I know you don’t really believe it, but. You. Yes. It’s really what I want – to be your boyfriend, I mean.”

The word sounds ridiculous but it’s the closest equivalent to ‘person I desperately want in my life after knowing them for a few weeks’ that Mikey can think of without sounding totally insane and he’ll take what he can get.

Pete, meanwhile, stares at him incredulously.

“You actually mean that?” he asks and the way he does nearly breaks Mikey’s heart. Pete’s told him, in the dark and with the sort of voice that he could barely hear, that he knows he’s fun at parties, entertaining and interesting and a good acquaintance to have, but that very few people ever bother to see past that, that he feels hollow and empty and like a giant fake behind it all. It had been the first time Mikey truly understood just where the kinship he felt between them came from.  
Mikey stares back, unwavering now that the words have been said. The worst is over, the truth is out.

“I do,” he replies and then doesn’t say anything because the way Pete nearly tackles him off the sofa knocks the breath out of him.

They’ve kissed so many times, Mikey knows how Pete kisses hello and goodbye. There have been too many excited post-show kisses to count. He knows how Pete’s kisses change when he gets turned on, knows the kind of turned-on desperate kisses that come shortly before orgasm, recently, he’s gotten to know the softer kind of kisses, the ones that feel like fondness and established routines.

This, however, is entirely different. Pete’s always into kissing but this time, his enthusiasm hits Mikey like a battering ram and he’s overwhelmed with the initial intensity of this kiss, like Pete’s pouring everything he’s feeling into it, trying to communicate his feelings without actual words.

This kiss feels like the monumental, romantic movie airport moment kind. There’s electricity between them where their lips touch, the zing where Pete’s teeth dig into Mikey’s lips so much more than it usually is even when it’s more gentle than it has been recently. It’s like Pete’s trying to crawl into him and make it all his. Mikey gladly welcomes everything Pete throws at him and, in spite of how little he’s slept recently, feels more rested and at peace right now than he has in longer than he cares to remember.  
It’s Pete’s lips on his, kissing like time doesn’t exist and they’ll never have anywhere else to be, the feeling of Pete’s hands through his shirt and Pete’s skin where they are touching, that feel like what he assumes coming home is supposed to feel like.

It’s Pete who breaks it after an amount of time Mikey has more than just lost track of. He stares at this man in his lap, beautiful and incredible, who’s giving him the hugest grin, the magical, beautiful, amazing, breathtaking kind that he can’t stop thinking of when they’re apart.

“Yes. Yes, please. Please be my boyfriend.”

It’s unreal. Mikey can’t believe this. It’s not something that just happens. For all he’s been quietly daydreaming about this in spite of his better judgment, he can’t believe this. This can’t actually be happening. He just.

“Really?” he has to ask.

“The most real possible,” Pete answers and they just look at each other, spellbound, until Gerard, who doesn’t believe in spending more time outside than absolutely necessary and has a Neil Gaiman quote on the subject, walks back on the bus and putters around the kitchen area, completely unfazed by the moment he just destroyed.

Pete leans in, nevertheless, not for another kiss but to whisper in Mikey’s ear.  
“What I wouldn’t give for some uninterrupted alone time with you right about now.”

Mikey’s intimately familiar with that tone of Pete’s voice, but even here, there’s something new and warm to it. It sends a shiver down his spine as Pete jumps up, smile suddenly huge on his face.

“I gotta go high-five my entire band now. And everyone I meet on the way. Possibly the entire tour.”

He makes his way to the bus doors, expectantly stopping holding up a hand instead of just walking past Gerard.

Gerard just gives him the sort of flat stare even Mikey would be proud of and it’s suddenly blindingly obvious that only one of them ever played a team sport or was popular in high school.

Pete nearly fucking skips past him.

“Your boyfriend is an idiot,” Gerard says as he sits down next to Mikey, huge mug of coffee in his hands.

Mikey just gives him a smile that’s incredibly dopey for his standards.  
Gerard sighs.

“I’m glad,” his older brother says, solemn but happy.

“It’s gonna crash and burn.”

“And if that should happen,” Gerard overemphasises the ‘should and takes a dramatic break mid-sentence. “We’ll be there to pick up the pieces.”

Now that Pete’s gone, the reality of what just happens crashes into him to tell him that he’s making one of life’s most stupid, reckless choices.

Why did he come out and say any of this?

Why couldn’t he just have taken this summer and everything they had and kept it as a fond memory instead of setting the both of them up for heartache and disappointment?

He might be spiralling but what he just did was more than just irrational – Mikey prides himself on being level-headed one, he knows better than to fall for someone like this, to actually try for a relationship with someone like Pete. He really fucking should know better than to jeopardise himself and his heart like this.

“Should you crash and burn, we will be there,” Gerard says with iron conviction. Mikey takes a second to appreciate the solid constant in his life that is his older brother.  
“But there is a chance that it won’t. Do you really just want to let that go?”

Mikey thinks back to what that kiss just now had felt like, to the incredulous look on Pete’s face, to the way he’d sounded, the way he’d smiled.  
He really doesn’t. Knowing what he does now, he doesn’t think he ever could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They’re so good when they’re happy together


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All things end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last bit I feel confident posting without too much work, after this, I have a lot more editing to do. I also have a lot more writing to do because right now, I’m barely a few months on the timeline ahead of you. I hope I can update next weekend but life is an unpredictable bitch.

They play a show that day, Mikey’s sure of it, but he barely thinks enough about it to be nervous before and afterwards he knows there are shows that he was wasted and higher than a kite for that he remembers better than this one, which he played as sober as he ever gets. The last few hours have been a busy blur, setting up and soundcheck and people everywhere and both him and Pete busy doing their actual jobs. Mikey swears they usually have more time to sneak off together at this point. Today all they can do is exchange smiles and meaningful looks before either of them has to go somewhere again and do something else.

In spite of how little he actually sees Pete, he’s everywhere. He’s everything. The memory of making out behind those speakers, the way he’d looked the last time he’d stolen Mikey’s bass, the last time Mikey had stolen his bass, his voice drifting over from where he’s talking to Patrick.

Mikey’s here, present and accounted for, occupying space, but actually he’s a ghost drifting after Pete, after his boyfriend.

It’s afterwards, both of them having watched each other’s sets and the longest encore ever finally over, that they drift towards each other within seconds.  
It’s like the rest of the world became cardboard cutouts, like they stepped outside time to somewhere parallel but slightly to the left, where the people around them and everything else don’t exist. Mikey suspects either Gerard or Patrick are running interference, but there’s no way to tell and honestly he can’t bring himself to care when Pete’s right there. Right there and happy and in front of him. Perfectly imperfect and just about ready for Mikey to kiss the life out of the second they have even half a minute of alone time.

The gods of tour scheduling are doing them one better, though. Tonight, after driving all the way through last night,they’re staying relatively long, leaving at a vaguely humane 8 in the morning, it’s a chance to do some laundry, take a shower, and get some sleep and, in their case, have some blessed alone time.  
Mikey won’t be able to tell afterwards how they managed to get a room in a nearby hotel all to themselves, he thinks that might’ve been his band, he vaguely remembers Frank’s suggestive eyebrow waggles, but he’s too busy wrangling his duffle without letting go of Pete’s hand to really worry. Their room’s door shuts finally shuts behind them with a final sort of click, locks out the entire world, and it’s as if time suddenly starts again.

 

He’s on Pete the second the door is shut, kissing him because he can’t not imagine doing it, not with Pete’s words from this morning echoing in his brain, not with Pete right in front of him, looking and smelling and feeling and sounding like he does, being Mikey’s.  
It’s more urgent and desperate than he intended and there are Pete’s lips and teeth and the sound of his breath in his ears Pete in his arms. He doesn’t know what came over him to unleash this, this moment of abandon, but he knows the way Pete makes his heart race as his hands wander under his shirt, as their breaths mingle when they break for air, is infinitely better than whatever he’d be doing right now if this morning’s conversation had gone worse. Pete, even when they’re not doing anything, takes his breath away.

And then Pete starts to undress. He is, purely objectively, a beautiful man. He’s so much Mikey’s type it actually hurts just based on looks alone. It’s one of the reasons they ended up making out almost in public so shortly after their first meeting. Looking at Pete now, shirtless, turned on and just as hungry for something insubstantial as Mikey unlocks something he didn’t even know he had. He aches with how much he needs to touch every inch of skin, every bit of him within reach. Mikey has always been better at communicating with touch and action and gesture and text and literally anything but conversation. There’s so many things he has to say to Pete right now.  
He doesn’t let Pete continue removing any clothes, this much new skin has Mikey intoxicated on what he’s seeing, feeling, touching. Pete’s here and he’s real and he’s Mikey’s. He really is Mikey’s.

This kiss is no less passionate but it’s softer, something to get lost in, less bite and more promise as Mikey moves away from Pete’s lips and down, down his jawline, licking and kissing and nibbling at his throat as Pete draws in a breath. Mikey doesn’t consider himself a patient person or the sort of lover who likes things slow and seemingly endless, their sex so far has been passionate and intense and hard and fast and wild and reckless and he’s loved every single second of it.

He’s taking his time now, though. Kisses to every inch of skin he can reach as they move to the bed, half blind with distraction, measured and slow in a way he didn’t know he was capable of enjoying. He’s never enjoyed foreplay the way he’s enjoying Pete’s ragged inhales when he gently drags his teeth over the tendons on his neck, the way he startles as Mikey licks along the thorns around his neck and then blows air over the wet skin, the shivers when he makes his way to his nipples, first one, then the other, all the while touching whatever he can comfortably reach, hands on Pete’s hips for now, not even close to his cock and not hurrying for it either.  
Time stretches around them infinitely, syrupy and slow and golden.  
Pete squirms under him, because if there’s one thing he doesn’t understand, it’s the idea of delayed gratification.

“Shh, let me,” Mikey says when Pete’s hands grip his hair and try to drag him back in for a kiss.

“What the fuck?” Pete asks when Mikey is reluctant to follow.

“Gotta appreciate my brand-new boyfriend.”  
Pete makes a noise at that, needy and probably louder than he intended. Mikey gives in and moves up to kiss him, still slow but deep and dirty.

He’s breathing hard when he comes up for air and looks at Pete on the bed beneath him, shirtless and rumpled and possibly the hottest thing he has ever seen, lips kiss-swollen and staring back with a dazed, heavy-lidded expression. He takes off his shirt and Pete fucking whistles in appreciation.  
His boyfriend (boyfriendboyfriendboyfriend a voice whispers in the back of his mind) is a fucking dork.

A really fucking mind-blowingly hot dork.

There’s still way too much of Pete’s body that he hasn’t kissed yet, hasn’t licked, doesn’t actually know by touch alone, it’s a travesty and he fully intends to revise, so he goes right back to the nipple he was getting acquainted with when he’d been so rudely interrupted, sucking and nibbling until it’s hard and drawn again, then moving back to its counterpart, kissing his way across Pete’s chest and then further down, along the bow of his ribcage, moving with every laboured breath, tasting the sweat and the tour and everything else that’s left its trace on his skin, leaving behind marks of his own.

He’s never taken the time to do this, things had always been so urgent and having Pete’s body mapped out in stark clarity’d never seemed like a good idea when they’d be leaving this behind so soon. They’re not now, at least Mikey thinks they’re not, and no matter what happens, after today, it’s too late for anything but falling into this headfirst and hoping Pete will catch him.

So he vows to give it his all when he finally arrives at the fucking weird bat-heart thing Pete has tattooed above his crotch like an invitation. The thing is stupidly hot simply based on its location and stupidly stupid as far as tattoo motives go. Altogether it’s so very Pete Mikey has to trace the design with his tongue and kiss it all over for good measure.

Pete keens when Mikey finally gets to the waistband of his ridiculously tight jeans and opens them. He’s obviously already hard, just like Mikey himself is, and nearly kicks him in the face getting out of his jeans.  
He throws them across the room, far away from them, and Mikey’s just glad he doesn’t hear anything crash as he focuses on the important things in life, namely removing Pete’s underwear and taking in the naked man who’s making a move for Mikey now, probably to take off his jeans or reverse their positions.

Mikey, whose pants are more uncomfortable than usual right now, moves before Pete can, his jeans joining the other pair somewhere on the hotel room floor as he moves to straddle Pete again, skin touching skin this time.

Pete is naked and beautiful and uncharacteristically silent underneath him as Mikey goes back to where he left, exploring his way down Pete’s body as if he had all the time in the world. Surprisingly enough, he does, Pete seems to have given in and decided to let him do whatever he wants.

For a second, he considers telling Pete just how perfect he is like this, but Pete would find a way to deny that statement even now and Mikey will have that discussion with him in words some day in the future, but he has more important things to do right now. Instead, he just puts the thought, the feeling, into every kiss, every lick, every touch as his hands move along the insides of Pete’s spread thighs.

Pete’s dick is possibly Mikey’s favourite dick in the world, he might like it more than his own simply because of who it belongs to. He shows his appreciation by first licking it from bottom to tip and then taking the tip in his mouth. Pete hisses at the sudden warmth, and barely keeps his hips from stuttering up far enough to make Mikey gag before Mikey’s arm moves to hold him down as he moves to take him in further, wrapping his hand around the base and stroking in time with the movement of his head.

“Mikey, you-”  
He stops what he’s doing for a second to look up. The intensity of Pete’s stare is almost unnerving, he looks starving, turned on, more needy than Mikey’s ever seen him.

He moves up enough to speak. “Let me. Please. Just let me do this now.”  
They have time. Mikey can blow Pete now and get off on it and then Pete can fuck him and then maybe Mikey can fuck Pete. It’s not like either of them is used to sleeping much.

“You’re incredible,” Pete mutters and closes his eyes as Mikey’s hand on him starts moving again.

He loves the sounds Pete makes, the aborted movements of his hips, the fact that one of his hands wraps around the wrist of the arm that’s still holding Pete in place, the tight grip grounding them both.

He could spend hours here, curled up between this perfect fool’s legs, kissing and licking and sucking the way he is doing now until his jaw gives out just for the reactions he gets, for the impatient movements when he kisses his way up the cock in front of him and the drawn in breath when he circles the head with his tongue and takes it in his mouth to suck as he moves down.

By now, it’s easy to tell that Pete’s getting close when Mikey moves his hand further down to play with Pete’s balls. It’s the way he gets more restless, the hand still holding onto his wrist because Mikey once told him he didn’t like being held down while giving blowjobs is now gripping even tighter, nails digging into his skin. His heavy breathing has turned into moans, the tiny sort made by someone who’s aware that loud noise will be overheard but who can’t help himself.

When Pete comes it’s with a cross of a moan and Mikey’s name leaving his mouth, as Mikey swallows it all down and leaves a kiss on the bat tattoo as he moves back up, Pete having obviously decided that he’s in charge now and dragging him into a kiss, filthy and reckless, like he wasn’t the one who just came, licking his own come out of Mikey’s mouth as if he were starving and this kiss was ambrosia.

For Mikey, who’s been turned on since he got off stage, his own orgasm is almost an afterthought, but Pete’s clearly dedicated to the cause. His hands move down Mikey’s body fast, freeing his cock from the underwear he still hasn’t gotten rid of and one wraps around it and starts jerking him off without even stopping the kisses for a second.

Okay, this definitely works for him.

It won’t take much like this, not when Pete’s been perfecting his handjob technique over the last few weeks, knows exactly how to move his hands in the perfect way, making out and dry, calloused hands seem to be all he needs. He breaks the kiss, breathing too heavy to continue reciprocating and Pete busies himself with kissing his neck instead as Mikey gets closer and closer and finally tumbles off the edge, head buried in Pete’s hair as he shakes through orgasm.

—

They lie tangled together afterwards. Neither of them has the energy for the shower they both definitely need. Pete’s using Mikey as a pillow while Mikey traces the designs on his arm, fingers following the lines of Jack Skellington. The tension between them has been released and everything feels smooth and somber in a way it never has. It’s quiet but for the sounds of the hotel around them, quiet enough for Mikey’s thoughts to get louder again. 

As amazing and incredible as this is, they haven’t actually talked anything through yet. Fall Out Boy’s going home soon while Mikey’s going to spend the few days after Warped doing laundry, finding his passport and flying to the UK for a festival he doesn’t even remember the name of. After that, it’s more touring, them touring as headliner, them touring with motherfucking Green Day.

It’s after a minute or two of Mikey contemplating the impossibility of their future that Pete speaks up. 

“I can literally hear the gears turning in that handsome head of yours. Penny for your thoughts, Mikeyway?” Pete asks, propped up on Mikey’s chest.

“What are we doing?”

“Taking a break for cuddles.”

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“I know. But it’s what we’re doing now. And what we’ll be doing more of in the future, right?”

 “I’m flying to England in two weeks,” Mikey replies, and it’s true, roughly, as reliable as any planning in his head is these days. He’s lost track at some point and mostly just goes along with wherever everyone else goes, but he knows that he’ll be in Europe soon, and that tour will kick off in the States shortly thereafter.

 “I don’t care,” Pete replies and there’s a solid core of steel to his statement.

“You don’t?”

 Pete sits up apruptly.

 “You want this, right?” he asks, looking down at Mikey, and they both know what he means is ‘You want me, right?’

 At this point, after everything, there’s no way Mikey can say no to that.  
“Of course.”

 “I want this.” And Pete could shout it from the rooftops, could get it tattooed, could make Patrick sing an entire song that’s just those words and Mikey wouldn’t have enough of that knowledge.

Mikey doesn’t want to give words to the thoughts in his head, the persistent voices that have been whispering that this was a bad idea since the moment he realised that Pete was more than just an attractive guy he really wanted to fuck.

He stays silent, and Pete must realise that he’s not going to say anything, because he continues talking without being asked.

 “I have all these feelings for you, Mikeyway. They’re big and soft and terrifying and I think you might have something like that for me, too. I don’t really give a fuck that you’re going god-knows where, that you’ll be on an entirely different continent in two weeks. I don’t care. That’s unfortunately what our lives are like. Of course I want to take you with me everywhere. Mostly, I just want you.”

 Relief floods through him. Pete’s rant might sound petulant but it’s exactly what he needed to hear. He’s wanted. Pete cares about him more than about the problems they’re facing. He knows that’ll probably change too, but these soft, big things they’re both feeling for each other won’t let him care about that either.

 “We’ll work it out?” he asks softly, instead of any of the things he probably should ask, any of the plans they should make, any of the practical things.  
Pete looks satisfied with himself.

 “We’ll work it out,” he says. “Now stop the useless angst and lie down again, I want my pillow back.”

Before he knows it, Mikey’s being manhandled back into lying down comfortably, Pete’s weight settling on top of him again, the discussion very much ended for now.  
“You’re the king of useless angst,” Mikey mutters and obeys.

“And I command silence, silence and cuddles,” somehow, Pete’s whispered answer sounds both smug and fond.

\--

 

It’s their last morning on tour and Mikey’s the only one awake. It’s rare for him to wake up before Pete, neither of them sleep as much as they technically should, but Pete’s had a few bad nights and crashed with Mikey in his bunk last night, he’ll be out for a while still, Mikey suspects, and takes the chance to actually see what Pete looks like asleep. Outside, the sun has risen a short while ago but the curtains keep most of the light out. It’s a half-dark in which he’s cataloging his sleeping boyfriend’s features, oddly calm and relaxed like this, no smile, no tension, no furrowed brows.

They’ve never said it but Pete considers himself in love with him, Mikey knows. Pete falls in love the same way Mikey trips over things strewn across their tour bus, frequent and without too many lasting consequences once the initial pain fades.

Mikey is capable of stalking his blog just like anyone else is, the highs and lows of Pete Wentz’ romantic life are public for all to see. He himself, meanwhile, isn’t in the business of falling in love with people frequently. He has dated people for weeks and months at a time without shedding a tear when it ended. Frequently his lack of emotional involvement had been the reason it had ended. He’s not the sort to randomly give pieces of his heart away, but Pete, Pete’s a special case.

Mikey remembers being 12, watching something he doesn’t even remember on daytime TV and both him and Gerard judging the main character for giving up her life for a boyfriend. He also remembers the way their father had laughed at them, told them to just wait, that one day, love would come for them, find them, slam into them like a freight train and leave them bewildered, out of their depth and willing to turn their whole life upside down for the sake of one person.

Looking at Pete sleeping next to him, just close enough that he doesn’t need his glasses to see every detail on his face, Mikey understands what his preteen self was incapable of understanding. With his band waking up around him soon, Mikey truly gets why that half-forgotten female lead had done what she’d done. He gets it and knows he could never abandon his band.

-–

In the coming years, Mikey will remember the last bus call of Warped 2005 as the single most awkwardly heartwrenching experience of his life. Pete dragged them somewhere quieter an hour ago, presumably so they wouldn’t have too many people watching as they said goodbye.

They’ve been skirting the actual goodbyes ever since, not daring to mention that there’ll be an ocean between them soon enough, that it won’t get better from there any time soon. They’re talking about everything and nothing instead, occasionally trailing into silence to just stare at each other for a bit, committing each other’s features to memory.  
The last grains of sand in the hourglass they were granted are running out and every bit of time they get after this is time they’ll have to steal away for themselves, minutes and hours and nights they’ll have to fight for tooth and nail.

It’s a lapse in conversation like that that has Mikey start to speak even before he knows what he’s attempting to say.

“I’m gonna miss you,” he almost-whispers and remembers when Pete first told him the same thing. It feels more sincere this time, more like it matters. It’s not the sort of thing that feels like it should be said out loud.

Pete’s face does something and it’s impossible to tell if he’s relieved or flattered or sad to hear.  
They’re standing close, having been holding hands or hugging or touching in some way this whole time even while they weren’t sneaking kisses like teenagers scared of being caught.

It’s no distance at all for Pete to bridge then, to put his hands on Mikey’s cheeks and kiss him as if they’re separated from the full festival tour of people by more than gear, a bus and some really convenient shrubbery. As if it would take more than a tech walking past for them to be seen. It’s the sort of kiss that means something, that matters, and Mikey lets himself be consumed by it. It’s like Pete wants to crawl into him and eat him up at the same time, and Mikey’d let him. It’s open-mouthed, it’s close, it’s desperate, it has to end way too soon.  
It really shouldn’t feel like as much of a summary of their relationship as it does.

Pete doesn’t stop when they break apart, breathless as they both are. He holds onto Mikey’s shoulders, pulls himself up, and kisses him again and again and again. They’re tiny, soft, wistful things, these kisses, as Pete moves on, kissing his cheeks several times over, the tip of his nose, his chin, his forehead when Mikey tilts his head down again, along the line of his cheekbones and all the way back to his ear, where he whispers back “I’ll miss you, too,” and seals it with another kiss to the joint of his jaw.

Mikey clings to Pete for dear life after that, just holds on and breathes him in, feels him solid and real and there.

It’s Patrick who interrupts them this time. All their bandmates have managed to walk in on what polite people would call ‘couple moments’ but for once, it doesn’t look like there’ll be teasing about this.

“I drew the short straw,” is all he says in explanation instead.

Everyone knows this isn’t easy on either of them, Patrick knows better than most, doesn’t say anything and just waits for them to detangle enough that Pete can follow him and they can leave. It’s time.

Pete’s nearly gone, not a word said between them, everything too much for language to cover, when he turns back around to Mikey, quickly crosses the distance between them and kisses him one more time, short and possessive, close-mouthed. Nothing more than that with everyone waiting.

“I love you,” he says, nearly a whisper in Mikey’s ear before he takes a step back, looks at him again for a few solid seconds, committing him to memory.  
And Mikey. Mikey doesn’t know what to say. He’d known these words were coming, this whole time. And he knows how he himself feels. Their feelings for each other are telegraphed in the way they look at each other, the way they touch, how they seek each other out and smile at each other.  
There are words for it, the exact ones Pete just said, stuck in his throat, but the feelings that make his heart skip a beat whenever Pete touches him are too big, too much, for him to summarise and he has no idea how Pete just managed to say it. What he feels is all-encompassing and terrifying and something he never wants to lose. There’s no way he could do this justice. Nothing he could say makes it past the lump they create in his throat when he looks at this beautiful, impossible, brave man in front of him.  
Yet again, Mikey’s too scared to act.

The silence between them says a thousand things more than Mikey ever could and none of them are what he means.

Slowly, the spark of hope in Pete’s expression fades. He turns, at last, crosses the few feet of distance between him and Patrick and grabs his hand.  
Mikey stands there, alone, for another five minutes before he lights a cigarette and leaves, too.

— 

From: pete, 3:42 am:  
you didnt need to say it  
From: pete, 3:42 am:  
it’s okay that you didn’t say it  
From: pete, 3:43 am:  
it wouldve been cool but u didnt and im fine with that  
From: pete, 3:50 am:  
okay im not fine but ill deal

Mikey doesn’t sleep that night, he’s drinking and maudlin and glad Frank’s staying up with him even if he doesn’t say it. Instead, he stares at his phone as they make their way back to Jersey, and doesn’t talk, doesn’t type, just drinks and stares and worries.

To: pete, 5:31 am:  
im sorry  
From: pete, 6:04 am:  
I shouldnt have said it. I wasnt lying but I shouldnt have

And now Mikey feels even worse.

It just feels wrong for Pete to write that, to think that, because Mikey’s seen a few Pete Wentz Freakouts and he can imagine what exactly Pete’s thinking right now. Something about him being too fast, too much for anyone to love, more than people bargain for already. And it’s wrong, that’s the issue.  
Mikey’s been turning what Pete said over and over in his head over and he last hours and sure, there is paralysing anxiety and regret and guilt and all that, but somewhere beneath them, there’s something good, something right.

He could hear it again, in different circumstances, he’d love to hear it again. Pete loves him. Pete honestly loves him. He said that and he meant it and something in him recoils at the idea of Pete regretting any of it. Pete loves him.

And right now he’s probably thinking about how Mikey doesn’t love him back.  
Fuck.

Once again, Mikey wonders why he has to always be like that.

He’s not even sure what he regrets right now and has less of an idea what to do. Nothing he could text would make this better and he can’t exactly kiss Pete until it all disappears and he feels like he could do anything the way he would’ve just yesterday. He can’t explain himself either, not really, not when his feelings for Pete are something he only half-admitted once, in the dark of a bunk, to Gerard and nobody else.  
It’s different, what Pete did, the confession in the deconstructing parking lot city. Mikey could never be that brave.  
Mikey’s drunk. He’s drunk in the bad way and he needs his brain to stop so he can sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry but also I’m not sorry at all guys.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey Way, disaster bisexual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter than I intended it to be, but it is also a lot longer than the corresponding part in my draft, because apparently telling this story in a way that makes sense takes a lot more words than telling it to yourself and a friend who gets supplementary text notes.  
> The supplementary text note for this chapter featured that gif from Iron Man where everything is on fire and Tony Stark thinks he did okay. You know that one.

What Mikey should do is call Pete the second he gets a chance to and pray to a god he doesn’t really believe in that Pete will give him a chance to explain his 24 hour radio silence. 

This, of course, is not what he does. What he does is… Nothing.

His phone lies there, next to him, like an accusation, occasionally ringing out notifications, staying untouched and still too far from absolving him by running out of batteries. His bandmates have picked up on the mood he’s in, their worry permeates everything like a bad smell. Sometimes he wishes they were less family and more colleagues, but what Ray and Frank are to him is best summed up as an extra pair of brothers and Gerard’s never been anything but overbearing when he worries about Mikey.  
Really, he dreads the day Bob finally gets that he’s part of them and loses whatever’s making him hesitate to get too close.  
His empathy for runaway teenagers has risen exponentially since he started touring the world. Family can be suffocating. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s completing the sullen teen cliche by not talking. He could count the words he’s said since he didn’t say anything to Pete on one hand. It’s been a full day since he last texted. He hasn’t gone this long without talking to Pete since Warped began, any hope of playing this off as a minor thing flew out of the window some time around hour 15. He knows how Pete’s brain works, it runs the same sort of over-worried circles as his own, prolonged silence is the worst possible course of action. 

He can’t bring himself to pick up the fucking phone. 

It seems like Pete has gotten the hint, whatever Mikey was hinting at, because after that first night, no new texts show up. It doesn’t seem like Pete is dealing well, though, because instead, Patrick starts flooding his inbox on day three. 

From: Patrick, 11:25 am:  
Whatever you think youre doing? not cool.  
From: Patrick, 12:00pm:  
I didnt think you’d do stuff like this  
From: Patrick, 12:05pm:  
Why the fuck dude?  
From: Patrick, 12:09pm:  
You have no idea what you’ve done to him  
From: Patrick, 12:10pm:  
He was doing ok before you. He worked so hard and he was doing ok  
From: Patrick, 12:40pm:  
At least tell him its over 

Mikey’s not sure he really understands what Pete and Patrick have, but he knows that it’s always them against the world, he’s heard it in the way Pete talked Patrick up, the way he reacted to the smallest slight against Patrick, the way he was ready to throw down over him at a moment’s notice, just like he’d seen it in the worried looks Patrick had sent them sometimes, the way he’d picked up after Pete, made sure Pete was okay and home and safe, had defended everything up to and including Pete’s manic fascination with some random kids from Vegas. 

In an alternative universe, one where they met under different circumstances than the ones they met under, with Pete anything other than Patrick’s frontman and band leader, with Patrick anything other than Pete’s golden ticket chance of a lifetime, they had a whirlwind romance and are as close to married as legally possible. In this universe, Mikey still isn’t sure he’s more than just a bump in the road that leads to their happy ending. 

In other words: The dynamic between Pete and Patrick may be confusing in its details, but Patrick coming after him is nothing short of what he should’ve expected. 

And, just as Pete considers it the norm, Patrick is both right and righteous. Mikey’s a fucking asshole. That much is obvious. 

Just like every other message he’s gotten in the last few days, he ignores these. 

—

It’s five days after Warped and he can’t stop checking Pete’s blog. All his accounts, really. For all he doesn’t talk to him, Pete is all he seems to think about, his thoughts running in circles, preoccupied and unable to let him rest without chemical assistance. 

It certainly explains the online chatter addressed at him, the things Pete posts. It’s fucking devastating. 

i love everything about you that hurts, he writes, some nights i almost pick up the phone, he adds and Mikey both wishes he would and hopes he doesn’t.  
I could learn to pity fools as im the worst of them, he reads and can’t help thinking Pete’s got it wrong. That title’s Mikey’s.

There’s posts about dreaming of waking up with someone and waking up not knowing if you want to kiss or punch them, about the foolishness of trust and the senselessness of love.  
It’s a neverending succession of bitter, petty, angry, hurt collections of words Mikey almost can’t bear to read. He was raised vaguely catholic, though, and can’t quite make himself stop. The weapon of his self-flagellation should be Pete’s words. It’s nowhere near what he deserves for the way he’s still unable to apologise or cut Pete loose or really, do anything a remotely decent human being should be doing. 

“I’m gonna unplug the internet and steal the cable,” Gerard says when he lets himself into the flat Mikey calls his home simply because he can’t stand the idea of still officially living with his parents to find him crouched in his computer chair poring over whatever the internet has to say about Pete and him now. 

“I’d buy a new one,” Mikey answers, barely acknowledging his brother. 

“So you’d leave the house for that?” Mikey doesn’t dignify Gerard of all people saying that with an answer. It’s not worth one on so many levels. 

“You’re obsessed with wallowing in guilt.”

“I’m keeping informed. This one thread is remarkably close to getting it right,” he says and points at the Pete Wentz fan community that has unshakable trust in the fact that Mikey Way broke Pete’s heart and that now they need to throw rotten vegetables at him at My Chemical Romance’s next concert. He understands the sentiment and suddenly feels a lot more apprehensive about touring. 

Gerard hums and leans over him to read what he’s pointing at. “They call you a dirty lying scumbag and are telling people to spit in your face if they get the chance.”

“Yeah,” Mikey says. 

“I know for fact you’re not a bastard,” his brother says as he keeps reading. 

“I don’t think they care when mom and dad got married.” 

A determined expression settles over Gerard’s face as he finally stops looking at the things Mikey knows he himself shouldn’t be reading either. “I’m gonna say something next chance I get,” he says and Mikey can already hear the speech he’s composing for the next interview or festival or whatever moment will present itself where someone hands him a microphone.

“Please don’t. I don’t need speeches,” few people know that Gerard’s first speeches had been in defense of Mikey. He’s never not found those mortifying. 

“Our fans shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Those are Pete’s fans,” he doesn’t even know why he’s arguing, it’s a weak point at best and they both know Gerard will do whatever he thinks is right. 

“This one just talked about losing all love for our band, I’m pretty sure they were our fan at some point.”

Mikey sighs and changes tactics. “They’re just kids on the internet.”

“This is still rude and invasive.”

Mikey just, he just really doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want Gerard to turn this into a Thing, doesn’t need his failures getting even more public attention, doesn’t want even more people scrutinising his choices. He fucked up. He fucked up and these are the consequences and that’s his thing, just his thing, and he has to live with it now. If that means a few kids stopped practically worshipping him because they guessed the truth about what sort of person he is, then that’s fine. 

He doesn’t need Gerard playing big brother and ‘saving’ him from his own messes. 

“Will you just leave it?” He asks, irritated. 

“Not until you do,” Gerard answers, equally pissed and pointing at the flickering screen of Mikey’s computer. 

A frustrated sound leaves Mikey’s mouth without his permission as he gets up and scrambles to actually face his brother. “How is this your business?” Is what he follows it up with when he finally manages to form words again. 

“I’m making it my business,” Gerard answers, frustration in every line of his body.

They’ve been circling around this for days now, this isn’t the first time he’s been found like this and Gerard has been getting shorter and more annoyed with him every time it had happened. 

Maybe he should just stop visiting, stop being an interfering asshole, and let Mikey make his own goddamn choices. Maybe Gerard has no room to berate anyone about this sort of behaviour because he’s at least as bad when he breaks up with someone, because he’s been dancing around the way Frank and him are using the slightest excuse as a reason to make out whenever possible but are never actually talking about what the fuck they’re doing, because maybe Jamia is okay with this but it’s eating Gerard up and he’s using Mikey’s shit as a way to distract himself. Maybe Mikey knows his brother too well for them to have an argument that doesn’t end up with them hurting each other in ways nobody else could. 

“It isn’t your business. What’s so hard to understand about that?”

“You fucking yourself up is always going to be my fucking business Mikes,” Gerard snarls back, voice at odds with the things he’s saying. 

“I’m dealing with some emotional shit, how is this fucking myself up?” He asks, gesturing at the days-old mugs and bottles, the laundry that exploded out of his suitcases, the baseline normal for any flat ever inhabited by either of them, really. And it’s a valid question. Sure, he’s been drinking, he hasn’t really been sober in a while. Sure, there has been weed and pills and whatever else he found in his luggage as he re-packed, but that’s not that different from normal. He’s not driving drunk or high. He’s not even going out, not partying with the sort of people who’d laugh as he sets himself on fire, not hooking up with anyone who looks at him twice. 

He’s a Way. If there’s one thing they’re great at, it’s fucking themselves up. All things considered, wallowing while surrounded by dirty dishes and laundry is nowhere near close to their standards of worrying behaviour. 

Gerard snorts. It’s a mean, joyless sound. “You seriously think I can’t see exactly what you’re doing Mikes? Because you’re definitely more transparent than your fucking windows.” Now he’s just being unfair. Sure, his windows are too dirty to provide a very clear outside view but it’s not as if Gerard has ever cleaned a goddamn window in his entire fucking life.  
“You had something that could’ve been so fucking good for you but you got scared and now you’re ruining it. It’s your fucking thing and you deserve so much more but I’m so damn tired of seeing you throw it all away.”

“The fuck?”

The thing about knowing each other too well is that, well, they know each other too well. Gerard is just as capable of seeing through Mikey’s bullshit and verbally slashing it all to pieces as Mikey is of doing the same to him. 

From anyone else, he’d dismiss this. Mikey’s pragmatic about his life choices, he’s level-headed, he calculates risks before he takes them. None of this fucking means what Gerard just said. 

But his brother with a point to make is like a goddamn force of nature. He doesn’t have the energy to explain.

“You might have a good thing here but you care too much and you’re scared of caring about anyone but us too much and so you’re going to fuck it up first chance you get before it starts affecting you,” Gerard explains, and it sounds like the sort of thing he’s been thinking for a while. Seriously. What. The fuck. 

Mikey’s not here to be lectured in his own home. “Get the hell out.”

“That’s an effective way to solve your problem.”

“Go. Just, go. Leave, go finally fuck our guitarist you hypocritical bastard,” Mikey’s voice comes out as the sort of low growl he rarely finds himself capable of, the one that only comes out when he’s arguing with Gerard. 

“Fine. Fucking awesome,” Gerard’s still snarling, still angry, but not arguing. “I just hope I get through your thick goddamn skull before you manage to ruin your fucking life beyond repair.”

Gerard turns on his heel and stomps out, always incapable of letting anyone else have the last word, kicking the dirty hoodie Mikey’d stolen from Pete out of his way as he moves to the door, violently pulls it open, and slams it shut behind him. 

Silence settles over him. Mikey sits back down and puts on some music, turns it up so he can’t hear his own thoughts. 

—

The things Gerard said don’t leave him. 

If anyone asked him, he wouldn’t have an explanation for why he didn’t say anything to Pete, half the reason for his continued silence is the fact that he has no way to justify it. 

He spends days six, seven and eight after Warped in the same sort of stupor he spent the first five in, lives on delivered pizza the way he used to wish he could back when an income he could actually live on seemed like an unreachable goal. At some point, he leaves the house for more beer and vodka, comes back glad that everybody in this godforsaken town is so dead inside they don’t care for the dirty, grubby, pathetic ghost of a bassist they sell alcohol to. 

The anger he felt at his brother drains from him, the question stays, echoing around his head like a voice in an empty arena. 

Was he right? Is Mikey ruining his relationship as part of some subconscious plan to ruin his own life? Is the thing that’s wrecking him just himself?

The only conclusion he arrives on with any degree of certainty is that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter one fucking bit. What matters is that he fucked up. What matters is that he hurt Pete. Pete is what matters. Pete seems almost sure that Mikey’s just the last of a long line of people who broke his heart, though his blog posts indicate that the way he did it took him by surprise.  
It’s a sardonically, sarcastically poisonous assessment of the situation and Mikey wishes he could explain how wrong it is. He didn’t mean to, this wasn’t intentional.  
What matters is that he did. 

He fucked Pete over and he hurt him and he abused his trust and it hurts. It all hurts. And he needs to change it somehow. 

—

In the end, it’s Ray who provides the necessary motivation for Mikey to finally get his shit somewhat together. In that one way, at least. 

They’ve met up for the first time since they got back from Warped to talk about England, where they’re playing next. Mikey doesn’t remember a word of what is said. He’s pretty sure it’s nothing important, they’ve been touring these songs too long to have any troubles putting together a setlist. Routine has set in. It really is time they write something new.

Gerard hasn’t visited since Mikey threw him out of his flat, but he’s given up on shooting him worried glances at this point and leaves him to a haze of meds and guilt. It’s best to let each other cool down a bit, neither of them is going to apologise because Mikey at least has zero regrets about what he said and Gerard doesn’t seem in a hurry to take back anything he said. They’ll meet back up for the flight and it will all be water under the bridge, business as usual.

His band still knows him too well and it’s obvious in the glances Ray and Frank keep exchanging as they look between him and Gerard that they know something has happened there. As expected, Frank sticks close to his brother, Mikey doesn’t know what’s been happening there but the lines have been drawn in the sand. Gerard gets molested by Frank, Mikey gets the full force of Ray Toro’s worry. 

Ray, whose saintly patience hasn’t been put to the test over the last few days and who is more considerate than any of them deserve, makes him stop after practice, when they’re putting the instruments they barely used away. Mikey’s not as high-strung as he was a few days ago. He doesn’t have a plan but he knows he needs to act.

“I thought you were experiencing new relationship bliss, but here you are. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you mope like this. What happened,” he asks when they’re on the way out of the studio.  
“He said he loves me,” Mikey replies, choosing to ignore the bit about moping, looking at the cigarette butts on the ground as he pats himself down for his own pack, finds it, and lights one. 

“And that was news to you?” to the rest of the band, Mikey and Pete’s feelings for each other are really just that obvious. Ray makes it his business to pay attention to Mikey and the things happening around him. Ray is the only reason anyone in this band is still fucking alive. Sometimes, Mikey hates him.

Mikey sighs out blue smoke. “Not really. That’s not it.”

“What is it then?” Ray asks and Mikey wishes he had a good goddamn explanation. 

He doesn’t, though, and sticks with what happened. “I didn’t say it back.”

“But,” the confusion in Ray’s voice is obvious, Mikey doesn’t need to look at him to understand what he’s thinking. Mikey really doesn’t fucking mope about anyone usually. “What did you do?” 

“Nothing. I- I wasn’t expecting it. I froze,” his voice is small, hesitant, the only reason Ray doesn’t ask him to repeat himself must be years and years of practice in Way mumbles. These are different circumstances than someone trying to talk to him before his second mug of coffee, though. 

“And then?” 

“Then we left.” Mikey starts walking. Both of them need to get home at some point, they’re both either too old or not old enough to spend all evening at some random street corner. It also gives him something to pay attention to that isn’t this. 

“Nothing since?”

“A few texts. I just. It’s been so long. I can’t.”  
“Welcome to the land of adult relationships. They’re terrifying,” Ray says and Mikey feels like calling him out on how he really can’t have written the book on that subject, but in some ways, Ray is disturbingly functional and it fucks with his brain sometimes, so he leaves the subject untouched. 

“Adult everything is terrifying,” he answers instead, because he wasn’t prepared for taking care of a flat of his own, or being sent bills, or the way people expect him to be responsible when he’s home. It’s easy to ignore these things on tour, but here, his fucking mid-twenties are coming for him and he has no idea what he’s doing. 

They’re still walking, but Ray deliberately slows down. “True. But not the point. Do you love him?”

Mikey stops. Looks at Ray, who’s looking back at him from a few steps ahead.

He hesitates, but the answer is a mere formality. They both know. “Yeah,” he admits, sheepish. 

Ray lights a cigarette, takes a drag and exhales. 

“So what now?” he asks. 

Mikey has carefully conditioned himself not to mess up his hair under any circumstances since he started styling it. Still, he cards a hand through it as he exhales. 

“I need to tell him.” 

He can feel Ray’s eyes on him as his bandmate considers his answer.  
“Most relationship issues are solved using communication.”

He hates it. He hates the way Ray says these things, because they seem so logical when he says them and still, in spite of being obvious, he just can’t.  
That’s unreasonable, though, and he needs to not blow up at Ray for it.  
“Stop making sense,” Mikey says instead. “I just. How?” 

Mikey spends the night staring at his phone. It’s there, in his hands, right here, the texts he hasn’t answered. Pete’s disappointment and his pain. Patrick’s accusations. The testament to what a fucking coward Mikey is. He has to charge it first and the messages he sees when the screen turns on again are all unimportant, nowhere near worth his attention in the face of what he is supposed to be doing. 

He ends up doing it. Or trying, anyways. It‘s not that he ‚mans up‘ or whatever it is people call these things. It‘s that missing Pete, thinking about Pete, worrying about him, the same thoughts echoing through his head over and over again, becomes unbearable. 

There’s no plan for what he’ll say if Pete picks up. He just. He just can’t keep sitting here. And it doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of the goddamn night because Pete is Pete and Pete has never cared about when normal people sleep. 

Pete doesn’t pick up when he calls. Not the first time.  
Or the second.  
Or the third.

He tries to call him at random intervals till shortly before they take off for London, his last call before his American phone stops working has him in a corner somewhere at the airport, the sound of people and announcements nobody can ever actually make out surrounding him. There is no quiet on an airport, no peace and no calm and no time. None of the things he’d need to actually have this conversation, whatever it is supposed to be, with Pete. He can’t not try this one last time. He has to reach him. Pete has to see, has to understand. In spite of everything, one thing hasn’t changed. Mikey still wants, he still wants so badly and it fucks with everything else and he can’t stop. 

Pete still doesn’t answer. 

He has a plane to catch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would anyone be interested in a frerard oneshot in this verse? Because honestly I’d like to know just what those fuckers are up to.
> 
> Lyrics written out as such are lyrics off of Infinity on High, blatantly ripped out of context to suit my own needs.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That “relationship negotiation” tag up there? We’re getting there. 
> 
> Alternatively: Mikey Way, slightly less disaster but infinitely more sappy bisexual.

Mikey doesn’t have any hopes of Pete calling him back but he still frantically checks his phone the second they touch down and he manages to make it work again. There’s nothing but the usual background noise of messages he doesn’t care about. Since he wasn’t expecting anything else, he tries to tell himself he can’t be disappointed. 

He’s not even sure what he’s supposed to do at this point. Mikey’s the king of letting casual relationships gradually fade into nothing and nobody getting hurt in the process. The thing between him and Pete is the first time he doesn’t want that to happen. It’s also one of the few times he’s sure he’s really hurt someone. 

In a movie, this sort of situation warrants grand gestures. If this were a romantic comedy, Mikey’d have to sing a cheesy song in front of the whole high school and get carried away by orderlies. Or write a poem about how he doesn’t hate Pete that sounds terribly much like a poem about how he loves Pete. And then he’d have to read it out to the whole class. And Pete would understand, and they’d get their reunion and go to prom together. Mikey hated high school when he was an actual student and it was nothing like the movies. Now, he’s too far away from Chicago or LA or wherever Pete is currently staying and recording videos or picking up brilliant new bands or finding someone who won’t fuck him over the way Mikey did. The possibilities are endless and all of them are better for Pete than Mikey is. 

Pop culture has truly forsaken him. In real life, Mikey doesn’t know how to do grand gestures. When he needs to apologise to Gerard, when he really monumentally fucks up enough for his fuckup to need actual acknowledgement, he’s just picked up the habit of buying him fancy new art supplies and leaving them on his pillow like some sort of pen-gifting fairy. When he really hurts Frank, rarely as it happens, the issue can be remedied with time, hugs, whispered apologies and good food Frank can actually eat. The latter is hard to accomplish on tour, but Mikey’s good at these things. With Ray, all he needs usually is to make it clear that he understands what exactly he’s sorry for, why he’s sorry for it, and that he’ll never do it again. The idea of disappointing Ray is terrifying and Mikey tries to follow the rules and boundaries he sets. 

None of these things help with Pete, who is very much a grand gestures person and probably would’ve found a way to say the exact right things in skywriting if he had to. Like this, Pete’s silence says enough. 

Even if it’s true, they’re past the point where a simple ‘I love you’ from Mikey would be enough. He’s pretty sure that’s not what it’s about. If it was just that, Pete would’ve answered one of his first phone calls. At least Mikey likes to think so. He’s pretty sure the problem is that it took him the better part of two weeks to pick up his fucking phone. 

He’s had time to think, had a thousand ideas he’s decided weren’t worth it on the flight alone. Not getting much sleep gives him time to write apology-speeches and throw them away again, to talk himself out of doing anything about the whole thing and talk himself back into it.  
If it were anyone but Pete he’d congratulate himself on dodging a bullet and just move on. But it is Pete and the way he’d looked, deflating and destroyed with fading hope, won’t leave him alone.  
Neither, it seems, will Gerard’s words. His blessings, the dressing-down he’d delivered. They’re not talking about the topic anymore. Gerard has made his standpoint clear, as long as nothing changes, nothing more will be said.  
What remains is the probably-accurate estimate that Pete and Mikey could be good, that Mikey will regret not having tried.

He balls up another sheet of paper with an aborted letter. He has no idea what he wants to say, but a form of communication he’s no good at won’t help.

They’re in England now, playing Leeds and Reading, with a few hours to spare before they’ve strictly got to be anywhere. Most of the band is sleeping, Frank is texting furiously in a way that means the time he got to spend with Jamia was too short yet again, Gerard started drawing something, but fell asleep curled around his sketchbook. Occasionally, Frank looks up from his phone and glances over at the sleeping figure. Mikey gives him five minutes before the urge to snap a photo becomes overwhelming.  
Mikey can’t stand being alone in a room with that mess of a relationship. 

It’s only for everyone’s sanity’s sake, really, that he sneaks out and accidentally leaves his phone behind. Were anyone focused on anything but their own disaster love lives, they’d call bullshit on that ‘accidentally’ bit in five seconds flat. Mikey hasn’t left his phone alone for longer than a minute since before they left Warped. 

Mikey’s never really been a festival person. He just really doesn’t understand the appeal of camping, doesn’t like the insects or the indignity of getting wasted and hooking up and doing everything he associates with a good weekend of concerts on a camping ground. As he’s giving everyone in charge of keeping them all in line the slip, he just hopes that all their fans are pregaming for their concert or doing whatever it is their fans do on festivals, none of which feature wandering the streets of - Leeds? Mikey thinks he might be in Leeds.

Europe’s cities are hopelessly confusing, made based on principles of order Mikey, who grew up close to world’s most infamous city, will never understand. Walking around the winding streets with the naming scheme based on rules he couldn’t begin to make sense of, he’s desperately glad for a chance to get hopelessly lost somewhere away from the right angles of American city planning and the way it’s almost impossible to truly lose track of where you’re going in a decent American city.

Gerard and him try to send postcards home occasionally. It’s a habit they’ve lost track of the more used they got to touring but picked back up after Elena’s death. If anyone asks, the reason he went AWOL is the search for an appropriately tacky postcard to send to their mom. Leeds (?), however, doesn’t seem like much of a tourist destination and the confused way he keeps wandering between these small stores pressed close together doesn’t yield a lot of appealing results until after he runs out of high street stores and into even smaller ones hidden in alley that wind off of other streets at odd angles. If all else fails he’ll just have to buy something at the airport. It’s the thought that counts.

The thing that stops him is not a postcard. 

It’s a toy store that stops him. He’s pretty sure that thing has been in that place for longer than Mikey or his parents have been alive, its window is only slightly above average size and the miniature train set making its way through the display is something straight out of a movie. What stops him is the basket full of stuffed dogs right beside the shop doors. 

Pete wants a dog, he’d told Mikey about it. And the ones he sees, he’s pretty sure they’re English bulldogs, are the ones Mikey’d imagined him having. One of them stares up at him with sad, black, plastic-shiny eyes, sad and endearing and somehow accusing. Okay, maybe that last one is only because the poor thing reminds him of Pete and he’s feeling guilty as fuck. 

He doesn’t even form another conscious thought until he stands outside the shop again, children’s toy in a bag in his right hand and no idea what he’s supposed to do with it. 

He’d been sure that sort of thing would figure into this relationship, buying random stuff that reminded him of Pete and paying horrendous amounts of money on shipping to make sure it reached his house as fast as possible.  
Instead, he’s ditching his band and risking getting caught out by fans just so he isn’t tempted to go check on Pete’s blog and read him slowly unravel with uncertainty and shattered pride, read the poems about half-broken hearts and slow-motion car wrecks, look at the comment section and the fans who keep asking “Is this about Mikey Way?”  
The dog feels like it weighs a ton in its flimsy plastic bag as he makes his way back to his band.  
He’s an adult man feeling guilt-tripped by a stuffed toy.

—

Calling Pete doesn’t even feel like it’s supposed to yield any results. It’s just a thing he does, whenever he has time and it’s a vaguely decent time in the States, just in case Pete actually managed to fall asleep at night. 

He just keeps doing it, mostly because he wants Pete to have some sort of sign that he’s not choosing world’s most cowardly way of breaking up, that he does care. Every call just keeps ringing until he gets rerouted to voicemail and he hangs up then. Mikey’s willing to deal with a lot of things for Pete, his dislike for phonecalls included, but this conversation doesn’t belong in a text or voicemail message. He needs to actually talk to Pete.

It comes as a surprise when he calls, late at night after the show and the party, sometime mid-afternoon in Chicago, and the phone he’s calling stops ringing, and the automated voicemail lady doesn’t start talking. Instead, there’s silence.  
“Pete?” he asks.  
A hum is the only answer he gets, it’s short, terse, expectant. Pete’s good with words but sometimes he’s incredibly efficient at expressing himself without them. Mikey shivers just from the tone.

“Are you there?” He asks and feels like an idiot for it. 

“Just. What the fuck?” the voice on the other end of the line asks. Mikey can hear him take a deep breath and it’s honestly the most merciful way he could’ve started this conversation.  
“What the fuck, Mikey?”  
And really, isn’t that the fucking million dollar question, the one he’s been trying to but still can’t really give a good enough answer to.  
What the fuck, Mikey?  
Just.  
What.  
The.  
Fuck. 

Somewhere on his hotel room table, there’s notes, yet another weird cross between a letter and a speech of him trying to explain what the hell he is thinking ignoring Pete like this mere days after asking him to be boyfriends for real. He’s done his best to make his brain actually focus and provide something at least resembling an explanation.  
All the words are gone now.  
What’s left is silence ringing out immeasurably loud over an international phone line and the accusing stare of a stuffed English bulldog.  
Fuck this.  
The words he’s supposed to be saying feel stuck in his throat, like nothing will come out yet again. It feels just like how it had been back in that parking lot and in spite of the fact that he can’t see Pete right now, his silence feels more expectant. Back there, Mikey didn’t have to explain going ghost on his boyfriend because he got confessed to. 

“I’m sorry,” he starts and it doesn’t feel like enough. “I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve-“ he says and doesn’t know how to continue.  
He quietly regrets freeing that fucking dog from the confines of its plastic bag because it stares at him with accusation in its beady, plastic eyes.  
“I bought you a dog,” he blurts out.  
“What?”  
“Not a real one. A stuffed one. From a toy store. Tiny place, I don’t know how anyone’s supposed to know it exists,” he starts, then doesn’t quite stop himself.  
“It looks like the sort of dog you’d have, pretty sure. And I walked past it and I saw it and it made me think of you, even more than everything else makes me think of you, I mean. And I guess for a second I forgot how much I fucked up because. Because I’m supposed to be buying you random stuff that reminds me of you and spend way too much on shipping it your way. Because that’s what you do when you’re on tour and you miss them like I miss you and it was there and it made me think of you and. I think I forgot that I only ever daydreamed about doing that sort of thing for you,” he trails off, unsure.  
Fuck. This was too much, he was overstepping. Pete didn’t need sentimental drivel about how much of a good boyfriend Mikey could be if it wasn’t for the glaring faults of him. 

“Fuck, Mikey,” Pete says, and it sounds - Mikey doesn’t quite know how to interpret it because Pete sounds exhausted and suffering and tense and he has no idea what to do with that. 

“I want to be angry at you,” Pete says.

“You’re right to be.”

“No, it’s-“ an inhale, an exhale. “I want to be so angry at you. I want to tell you to fuck off and never call me again. I want to want to make Patrick scream spiteful shit about you all over the world. And then you,” a pause. 

“You say stuff like this, do stuff like this. I demand a photo. You better send that thing my way no matter what.”

Mikey’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean. Is this a good thing? Pete hasn’t accepted his apology and Mikey’s cautious of counting his chickens before anything happens. 

“I’m so sorry for not texting. For not saying it back,” Mikey says instead of answering. The whole thing is burning bright in his brain, the question mark of what him and Pete are at this point. 

Pete hesitates, there’s a crackle of static over the line. 

Mikey’s spent time thinking about the nature of apologies, about what they’re supposed to mean, what he needs Pete to know about the nature of his sorry-ness.

“I’m sorry for the radio silence because I know going off the grid without explanation and with all that between us is a dick move and I can’t promise to never do it again but I won’t ever do it again that way. I’m sorry for leaving things like that and behaving like world’s worst boyfriend. I’m sorry I got scared of telling you that I love you because I do but -“

“Really?”

“What?”

“Fucking. Days of radio silence, no goddamn idea what’s going on, nothing from you, me thinking this was world’s most cowardly breakup when I’d just let myself fall for you all and now you just drop a confession like that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for this it’s just. I overthought things. I worried too much and then I fucked up.” It’s the story of Mikey’s life, really.

“Explain.”

“It’s just. Don’t get me wrong, I love that about you, but. You fall for people and get your heart broken and then you write a few songs about it, dust yourself off and do it all again -”

“That’s a gross oversimplification.”

“No, I know. I’m an idiot. I just got scared because I don’t work that way. I don’t just fall for people and then get over them when things don’t work out. Or, well, that’s not what this feels like. What you feel like. I don’t know if this is a getting-over sort of thing and, well, that felt scary. Still does.”  
He takes a deep breath.  
“But I’ve had a lot of time to think about it and not saying it isn’t gonna make it less real so. I love you. In a really scary way where my mother would take one look at me and the way I look at you and start researching gay wedding planning in spite of the fact that us getting married is a terrible idea and not even legal and we haven’t been anything for long and I just. I love you and I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Silence. Then. “Mikey.”

Just. Fuck that stupid runaway mouth of his. He’s blabbering all over this conversation and none of it makes any sense. “I’m sorry. Please forget I said most of that, this is why I usually don’t talk I-”

“No,” Pete says with the sort of finality Mikey’s never heard of him.

Ummm. “What?” he asks, because honestly, what? Why?

“No. I’m sure as fuck not going to forget a single word you just said Mikeyway. I don’t know if I want to punch you or kiss the life out of you but I’m not gonna forget a single word of this,” Pete says, rushed and agitated.  
He sounds a lot more gentle a few seconds later when he adds “I don’t know what to do with you, you drive me fucking insane.”

Mikey knows exactly what he means. Minutes ago, being as far away from Pete as possible for the rest of his life seemed like a sensible plan, right now, he wishes they were in the same room, would give anything even just to see his face. Goddamn it, this is hard.

“I wouldn’t just get over you in a few songs either,” Pete says, after a few beats of silence.

“Just look at my blog, you don’t talk to me for a few days and I already have enough lyrics for an album. If this ended, I’d have enough for at least five more. No matter what happens, I’m gonna be writing songs about you a decade from now,” Pete says as if he can imagine either of them still being around and dealing with each other in ten years’ time.

“Most of your songs aren’t really nice to the people they’re about. I’m not sure if I like this,” he doesn’t want to be a testament to Pete Wentz’s self-hatred and terrible romantic choices. There’s enough of that out there already.

“Hey!” Pete half-shouts, amost managing to sound offended. “I could decide to branch out?”  
Mikey spends a grand half-second thinking about Pete writing radio-worthy love songs and discards the idea immediately. Some things just don’t seem realistic. 

“But would you, though?”

“Please, Mikeyway, we’re such messes I’m always going to have something to write about,” leave it to Pete to be both reassuring and really fucking foreboding in one sentence. It’s not like he’s wrong, Mikey’s self-aware enough for that.

“I should’ve called the second we left,” he says. He really should’ve. 

Pete hums in acknowledgement. “Maybe when I texted you,” he replies.

“I do love you”

“Stop saying that as if you’re going to follow it up with a ‘but…’ that’ll break my heart.”

Mikey takes a deep breath. There are no ‘but’s about this. “I love you.”

“I know,” Pete replies, but there’s a smile audible in his voice. 

Things can’t be all bad if Pete’s quoting Star Wars.

“So, we’re good?” Mikey asks, because he can’t not.

“As good as we can be without makeup sex,” Pete answers.

Missing him suddenly hits Mikey again like he’s being doused in cold water, the absence of the man he loves like a black hole by his side. He wants. He needs. He definitely understands what Pete’s saying here. What he’d give just to see him, just for a hug, just for one kiss. He wishes, god, he wishes. 

Mikey feels both more solid and more fragile right now, new and raw like healed-over injuries. If only he could touch Pete, maybe they’d feel more solid. If only he could touch Pete, he could kiss the things he means to say into his skin, if only he could touch Pete, they never would’ve had to have this conversation. 

And Mikey still wouldn’t have said the words, would’ve kept trying to communicate them through touch alone and he still wouldn’t be sure if they both meant the same things when they silently spilled secrets into each other’s mouths.

Still, god, how much he wants Pete’s skin under his hands now, to make sure he remembers the tattoos correctly, to see, feel, hear, know him coming apart. 

“I’d make it all up to you if we had some uninterrupted in-person private time,” he says.

“That’s some big promises there Mikeyway,” Pete’s voice is shot through with something that could be want.

“I just played a show and you’re not here for me to enjoy post-show high with,” Mikey says. “I wish you were here so I could make you forget your own name.”

“I’m not going to stop you if you want to tell me more,” Pete replies and Mikey is incredibly glad that Ray, who he’s supposed to be sharing a room with, fucked off to parts unknown when he goes into detail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry about how late and how sloppy this is. The conversation between them killed me like 5 times over, so I figured it was time to let it out into the wilds of the internet.  
> Thanks for your patience, life can be kinda exhausting currently. 
> 
> Up next: POV shift! Nintendo Fusion Tour! The rest of Fall Out Boy as protective puppies! Adorable baby ducklings also known as Panic! At the Disco!

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is idkwhereimgoin, i’m also romeinruins on pillowfort and i’m incredibly ready to yell about these idiots. 
> 
> Lexi: You’re welcome. And thank you.


End file.
